The Outer Limits 1842550624, 9781842550625

Citation preview

Stgphgn LaW iuustrated by Daniet postgate

#

a

3.99

,

MORE MYSTERIES FROM

PHIL0S0P}|Y FItES ==THE

fio

W

Stephen Low on Stephen Lcw

'How did I arrive at philosophy? At the age of t7 I fell 65 feet head first off a clifl some say I never really recovered. I was thrown out of sixth form and never did get any A-Levels. 'After a number of dead-end iobs I ended up working as a postman in Cambridge for four years. While I was a postman I read a lot. One book led me to another and eventually I ended up reading nothing but philosophy books. I found that philosophy books addressed those really big questions that had always bothered me and that most other &sciplines just skirt around or ignore. 'I managed to gain a place at The City University, London to study for a degree in philosophy. I got a first and that enabled me to get funding to.go to Oxford University where I obtained my doctorate.I hrve held a number of lectureships at Oxford colleges and I'm currendy a Lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. 'I have lots of interest outside philosophy. I still live in Oxford where I play drums in local jazz and Latin bands. And I like to climb, especially in the Alps.'

More information about Stephen Law and philosophy can be found at www. thinking-big.co.uk

fii,

a

Stephen Law Illustrated by

Daniel Postgate

,

First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Orion Children's Books a division of the Orion Publishipg Group Ltd Orion House 5 Upper St Marrin's Lane

LondonWC2H 9EA Text

copyright

@ Stephen Law 2003

Illustrations copyright @ Daniel Postgate 2003 Designed by Sarah Hodder The right of Stephen Law and Daniel Postgate to be identilied as the author and artist respectively of this work has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by *y means, electronic, mechanical, photocopyiirg, recording or.otlerwise, without the prior permission of Orion Children's Books. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc ISBN

r

84255 062 4

For Freyja and Ferne, Alex and Hamish

Contents lntroduction Chapter 1. Astrology, flying saucers and ESP

1

Chapter 2. Killing people 33 Chapter 3. Does Murderous Mick deserve to be punished? 57 Chapter 4. Where did the universe come

from?

Chapter 5. ls time travel possible? I t 5 Chapter 6. Could a machine Chapter 7. But is

think? t4t

it science? 167

Some Useful Words 197

80

lntroduction Travelling to the Outer Limits This is a philosophy book. That means it's

of the deepest and most exciting mysteries of all. Have you ever wondered where a book of mysteria: some

the universe came from?

SHoulD rJE REA.I,', BE D66ruCTlrrS'/

Or whether it is OK to execute murderers?

\ tleftNAtL'l 7've

Dotue

rr

tNe cReATeDA MAcH

'fknrlHrNKs I

Or if a machine could think? oooo +r

lx

THE OUTER LIMITS

Or if time travel is possible? Then you have

olreody started

to

grapple with some very famous

philosophical puzzles. This book is for those who want to take the next step. We're going to see

if we

can figure

out the answers to these puzzles by thinking like detectiva.

how do detectives think? When faced with a myster)a Sherlock Holmes would take out his pipe and use his powers of reoson. He would carefully sift through the evidence and arguments until he was confident he had So

the answer. That's how philosophers try to think, too. The idea is coolly and calmly to

q?

\

figure out, as best we can, what's most likely to be true. Of course, we may not be able to solve all the mysteries in this book. But I'm pretty sure we

will be able to solve some of them.

Like everyone, I make mistakes.You may well find yourself

with me in

good sign. In philosophy the idea is to think for yourself. Don't just take my word for something. Figure out for yourself what's most likely to be true. disagreeing

places. That's a

In thinking philosophically we'll be thinking without o scfety

net.

INTRODUCTION

Even those things we normally just take

for granted may be open to question. Of course, some people can get nervous when their ordinary, everyday beliefs are questioned.They start to get vertigo. They prefer to stay where they feel safe. But if you are anything like me you'll relish the challenge of thinking philosophically. So get ready for some of the biggest adventures in thinking. For we are about to embark on a journey to the very edge of our understanding of the world. Hold tight, as we travel to ... The Outer limits!

o

o

o

o

xl

Chapter

1

Astrology, flying saucers and

ESP

Mysterious World

Aisha is slumped in an armchair.

(

idly flicklng through the pages of a magazine. Suddenly, in rushes Tom, one of her She's

\ \fi"roni

()

housemates. Tom has been

Ur

shopping and is rather excited about a book he's just bought from Big Al's

o
\J

nP-

flooding fast. Ned couldn't be safely removed without special equipment that was several hours

'\

$

d

\ a

away. But unless Ned was removed

{\.

within the next haif hour or so, the 20 other cavers trapped underneath Ned would all drown - though Ned himself would

AA.(O?

survive.

The chief of rescue services asked the Great Glugh what should be done.The 20 cavers could be saved, but only

if

the Great Glugh

kill Ned and cut his body out of the exit hole. What should the Great Glugh's decision be?

gave permission to

In the first three cases, it seemed the right thing to do was to take an innocent life in order that other lives might be saved. If the right thing to do when presented with this sort of dilemma is simply to calculate which course of action will result in the greatest number of innocent lives saved, then obviously the right thing for the Great Glugh to do in this case is to kill Ned and save the other cavers.

57

KILLING PEOPLE

But is that the right thing to do? I am not so sure. What do you think? The transplant case

it seems pretty clear to me that it would be to kill an innocent person in order to save an innocent

Here's a case in which

quite life.

wrong

in charge of two patients. Tim, one of the patients, has brain disease. He will be dead within a week or so. The other patient, Jim, has heart failure. He will certainly die within a few hours unless he receives a heart uansplant. Unfortunately, no transplant donor has been found. We are the doctors

W.o l-

lon

il

But then we happen to notice thatTim has exactly the same tissue Jim. So Tim's heart could be safely transplanted into Jim and Jim would almost certainly survive. What is the right thing to do? If we wait forTim to die before type

as

we take his heart it way to

will

be too late. Both men

will

die. The only

Jim is by killing Tim. ButTim isn't happy about being killed before his time is up. He wants to spend his last week with his family. What should we do? Of course, we could kill Tim anyway.We could do it secretly and save

painlessly. We could do

it

at night while Tim is sleeping. Neither

Tim nor his family need be any the wiser. His family would just

53

THE OUTER UMITS

think Tim had died from brain disease a little earlier than expected. It's clear that i[, when faced with these life-and-death situations, the right thing to do is always to do whatever will save the most innocent lives, then obviously the right thing to do in this case is

Jim by killingTim. But is that the right thing to do? Pretty obviously not! Almost eyeryone agrees that it would be morally very wrong indeed to kill Tim, even if the result would be

to

save

that Jim survives. Tim's 'right

to life' But why would it be wrong to killTim? Some people would say: because human beings have rights. In particular, they have a right to life,

right not to be killed. True, a life might be saved by killing Tim. But it's wrong deliberately to infringe someone's rights, especially their right to life. a

That's

whyTim shouldn't

-7t,runS R RI&HTouFE.

Ir tsI'loFfl-tYHfoN(, Io tNFAn&e lT, NO

r"\AnfR HOIJ Goo(

oue lN{e}moNS.

be

killed. A tricky puzzle But hang on a minute. If we should

never

under ony circumstances infringe an innocent it follows that it's also wrong to destroy the submarine in the submarine case. Blowing person's right to life, then

up the submarine would certainly involve infringing the crew members'rights to life.Yet it seems pretty clear that in the submarine case we should kill the crew. The same is true of the astronaut case. In fact the astronaut case is a lot like the transplant case. In both, we can save one of rwo

5+

KILLING PEOPLE

people only by killing the other. If we do nothing, both

will

die.Yet

in one situation - the astronaut case - it seems that we should kill, while in the other - the transplant case - it seems we shouldn't. So what's the essential difference between the transplant and

astronaut cases, the difference that explains why

it is OK to kill in

one case but not the other?

wrong to kill one of the two astronauts in order to save the other. And I also guess that, like me, you feel pretty sure it would be wrong to kill the braindiseased patient to save the heart patient. But that puts us both in a very awkward position. If we feel it's OK to kill in one case but not the other, then it's up to us to justify treating the rwo cases differently. I'm not so sure I can do that. Can you?

I

guess that, Iike me, you feel

it

wouldn't be

The case of the conjoined twins

As

I

say,

it

seems to me that sometimes

it is morally

acceptable to

it isn't. But, as we have seen, it's very hard to explain why it is OK to kill the innocent in some cases but not others.You may have an explanation of your own. Here's a final case for you to think about. This time, it's not a case that I have made up. It's a reol life-and-death case. I shall leave take an innocent life and sometimes

you to decide what should be done, and why. A couple of years ago two girls were

born joined together at the chest. They were conjoined, like this: One twin was called Mary, the other Jodie. Jodie was bright and alert, but Mary had only

G

a

rudimentary brain and depended for her blood supply on lodie's heart.

55

)

]T{E OUTER IIMNS

The parents and doctors faced a terrible decision. Leave the two

girls connected and both would die within a matter of months. Separate them, and Jodie would probably survive, though Mary

would certainly die. The doctors involved believed that they should operate to separate the

two girls. That way, at least one girl might be saved.

But the parents, devout Catholics, objected on religious grounds. They believed that the operation to separate the two girls shouldn't go ahead, for

it would involve killing one of the

wvo girls. And

that, they felt, would be wrong. Of course, they knew that the result of not killing Mary would be that

both

children would

shortly die. The doctors went to court and obtained permission to operate against the parents' wishes. Mary was killed. But Jodie survived. But wos that the right thlng to do? Is this like the astronaut case, in which we thought it right to kill one innocent person in order to save the other? Or is it more like the transplant case, where we agreed that

it would be wrong to kill one patient in order to save

the other?

What do you think, and why?

56

Chapter 3 Does Murderous Mick deserve

to be punished?

Here's Murderous Mick. He's just been

captured trying to rob a bank. Mick shot a bank guard in the back, just for fun. Obviously we think very badly of people Iike Murderous Mick. We hold them responsible for their dishonest, selfish and cruel behaviour. We believe that they deserve punishment. Mick will end up Iocked up in jail for years. I guess you think, 'And quite right too. That's what Mick deserves.' A'common sense'view That people who rob and murder deserve to be punished for what they do is, of course, the'common sense' view. But is 'common sense' correct about this? As we

will

soon

discover, there's

#flf,fl9,fi't

a

famous philosophical argument that

seems

to

show that we are mistaken: Murderous

Mick doesn't deserve punishment. In fact he's entirely blamelessl

57

THE OUTER LIMITS

But before we get to that famous argument, let's quickly look at an obvious exception to the rule that people deserve to be punished

for the harm they

cause.

Mr Black gets shoved out of the window We don't always hold people responsible

for what they do. Suppose Mr Black gets pushed backwards out of a window. He lands on top of Mr Brovrryr.

i i

l'

Mr Black's OK. But unfortunately, by landing on Mr Brown, Mr Black breaks Mr Brown's arm. Is what happened Mr Black's fault? Does he deserve to be punished? Surely not. Murderous Mick might deserve punishment, but not

Mr Black. Why is this? After all, like Murderous Mick, Mr Black caused a serious infury.

it

Mr Black had no control over what happened. He was quite unable to stop himself being pushed out of the window or falling on Mr Brown. How can it be Mr Black's fault that Mr Brown ended up with a broken arm? Surely we can only hold someone responsible for The answer,

seems, is that

58

DOES MURDEROUS MICK DESERVETO BE PUNISHED?

doing something they actually had some control over. But, as I say, we do suppose that Murderous Mick deserves punishment. We suppose that, unlike Mr Black, Mick didn't have to do what he did. Instead

of

going in for bank robbing, murder and mayhem, Mick could have chosen to do good things with his life. Mick deserves punishment because, unlike

was

@-

/r

Mr Black, he

--v-t

free to do otherwise.

I

I

I

I Tr-r-

14rcKS $uP Krlcuev FoR-ltr€ lromeuesS.

That, at least, is the

'cofltmon sense'view. An extraordinary argument Let's now turn to the famous philosophical argument earlier. The argument is extraordinary because

it

I mentioned

seems to show that

no one can ever be held responsible for what they've done. Not even Murderous Mick! Your first reaction to this is probably to say,'Are you nuts? Of course Mick deserves punishment!'But don't make up your mind ]ust yet. Lett take a closer look at the argument first. I call it, for obvious reasons, the we-neyer-dCIerve-punishment orgument. I'11 break the argument down into three parts. The we-never-deserve-punishment argument. Part one: laws

of nature

The argument begins with a scientific discovery. The universe,

it

seems, is everywhere ruled by lows. These laws of nature, as they are known, govern everything that happens physically.You might think of the laws of nature as a list of instructions that everything in the

universe is compelled to obey, down to the very last atom. For example, there's a Iaw that governs how bodies atnact each

59

THE OUTER LIMITS

other gravitationally. Take the two planets Earth and Venus. These two objects exert a gravitational pull on each other. And there is a law of nature that says exactly how much pull these objects will exert on each other. The amount of pull depends on how massive the objects are and how close they are together. Big objects close together exert a strong pull.

Little objects far apart exert a weak pull

@ffi)@ in the entire universe, from the tiniest pebble on the beach to a whole galaxy, must obey this

Every pair of physical objects

law.

There are no exceptions. There are many other laws of nature, of course. In fact werything thot physicclly hoppens in the universe is governed by such laws.

This means that,

if you know exactly how the universe is set up at any particular moment in time, down to the movement of the very last atom, and if you know all the laws of nature, then it is possible in principle for you to work out what will happen next, down to the movement of the very last atom. It's as if the universe is a train and the laws of nature are its rails.

If you know how fast the train is moving, and you know how the rails are laid, then you can predict exactly where the train will be at any point in the future. The train has no choice about where it will

60

DOES MURDEROUS MICK DESERVETO BE PUNISHED?

# a @aG on,

1ime t

end up. It's compelled to travel in a particular direction by the rails. The same is true of the physical universe. Every piece of physical matter is in the vice-like grip of the same rigid laws. It's impossible

for anything to happen other than what actually happens. Earthquakes, volcanoes, rockfalls, the tides, ice ages: everything that goes on physically is made to happen, and could

in principle

have

been predicted long beforehand.

(m)=fr

J*G,

.7

7( 8=l' r2h-' (s -t

,Lr+

?

7

E4t@fii Philosophers have a name for the view that everything that physically happens in the universe is determined by laws. It's called determinism.

The we-never-deserve-punishment argument. Part two: we're nature's puppets

Which brings me to pail rwo of the we-never-deserve-punishment

61

THE OUTER LIMITS

argument. We are physical beings ourselves. We have physical bodies. But then

it follows that our bodies are in the grip of the

same physical laws as everything else.

What does this mean? Well, laws, then

it

seems we

if we

ore not free to do

are also

in the grip of these

on/thing other than whct we actuolly

I just scratched the top of my head. But if determinism is true, I was no more able not to scratch my head than a pebble is free to float in mid-air or water is able to flow up hill unaided. Everything I do is physically determined, and could in principle have been predicted long before I do. For example,

decided to do it.

L

So I om notf.ree. As physical beings, we are

O

nature's puppets, dancing on her strings.

'But there are no laws of human nature...' Before we get to part three of the we-never-

deserve-punishment argument, let's quickly deal

with

a

) I

worry you might have about part

fvvo.

'Surely,' you may say,'there are no laws

governing humon behoviour, are there? For example, there's no law that says that when someone is hungry and they know that there's

food in the fridge, they will go to the fridge.'

Suppose Mary is

hungry and she knows the only food is in the refrigerator.

,60

t(E 62

)

DOES MURDEROUS MICK DESERYETO BE PUNISHED?

Now knowing human behaviour likely that Mary

as

I do, I can

will go to the fridge fairly

say that it's pretty

soon. But there's no

will. Perhaps Mary's on a diet. Or perhaps she's in the fridge for a party she's planning to have that

guarantee that she saving the food evening.

The most I can say is that Mary

will probably go to the fridge.

There's no law compelling her to go to the fridge. She's free either

to go or not to go. Is this a good objection to the claim that we aren't free? I don'r think so. True, there are no laws of human behaviour. But even if there no laws of human behaviour, does it follow that Mary is free? No, it doesn't follow. I admit there's no law that says that a hungry person who knows there is food in the fridge will go to the fridge. But a human being is a storm of tiny particles.

are

a t(

,.""

?

.G

"c) o